Hey all, I'm not sure if I belong here or with the oldies [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I am 28 and was introduced to Tolkien from a young age, My mother being a member of her local Tolkien society and both my parents being avid Rpg'ers in their younger years, I don't exactly remember when my mother first read The hobbit to me, as she read it to me and my brother many times [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] I was first intoduced to LOTRs at the age of 9, when my father read it to me, and I certainly did not understand all of it from the first telling, what I do remember most is the brillant voice my father did for Gollum [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I was 12 before I picked up the Hobbit and read it for myself and 14 before my mother allowed me to read her copy of The Lord of the Rings and I have been hooked ever since [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] With every reading revealing something new to me.

I must admit that I have only recently read the Silmarillion, and it reveals sooo much more, that I don't know how I ever lived without it! [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

My mother has just sent me her 1976 copy of Farmer Giles of Ham and a 1975 copy of Tree and Leaf, Smith of Wootton Major, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, with the simple note saying "Enjoy" [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

My only problem now is to decide which one to read first [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Just a drop-in to say that at age 40 (soon to be 41) Thenamir qualifies for the Middle-Age Middle-Earthers.

Found Tolkien as a High School Sophomore in 1978, in part because friends were quoting passages from Bored of the Rings, the Harvard Lampoon parody, and though I did not know the subject being parodied, it ad me in stitches. I hit the library next day and found myself a copy of FOTR, and was inextricably hooked.

I was a casual, almost closet fan of LOTR until news came out that a movie was in the works, whereupon I became a crusader for canonic purity, and found the Barrow Downs. After frequenting the chat for several months, I found myself in the good graces of the Barrow-Wight, who allowed me to use the name of the site for my openly-capitalistic Tolkien store. We formalized a joint venture, and I've been associated with the Downs ever since.

Good to be here, and to have some mature perspective. Party on, dudes.

(psssst, Thenamir - having read Tolkien's books more than 18 years ago qualifies you for the Tolkien Coming of Age Club, where the geezers gather. Come on over! Rocking chairs provided - please bring your own teeth...)

You know, most of these Tolkien "middle-agers" are younger than me! But that still does not make me an "old folk" Tolkien wise, for I did not crack the LOTR until 1991, although I had read the Hobbit in 1988 and had oddly attempted to start my Tolkien readings with the Silmarillion in 1987, getting 100 pages through it and giving it up in confusion. So, I guess that makes my first Tolkien (incomplete) 16 years ago, not quite enough for the old folks and on the outer edge of this group as well! Then again, I've always been "on the cusp" and never quite fit in with any group, being on the edge of Gen-X and Baby Boomers and alternately identified by those who claim to know as being one or the other, depending on where Mars and Venus are in the sky and whether the Milky Way is visible through the clouds that night... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Cheers,
Lyta

That's the point :) Welcome, Lita
and Nerindel

Hola, Thenamir, stray grandsires are also welcome here :p

Estelyn, your graciousness and beauty always makes any place of your presence more lovely. We of the middle age club are honored and fascinated to have you as our guest

*H-I bows

Hi all my fellow tweeners...

Today is my 1st deathday! It was indeed a short time before midnight (Eastern time) on the 27th of September that I signed up here, so, I am posting as near to the exact time as I can guess. (Also, three days from now will be my 19th birthday. Nice to time my deathday and birthday three days apart, is it not? [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img])

I couldn't think of another thread which this would not be horribly, shamelessly off topic in, so this is just a wee bit off. [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img]

Edit: Well, all the clocks in my house say it's 5 minutes till 11, but apparently even with a whole 24 hours to work with, I missed posting on the right day BD time by two lousy minutes. Man.

[ September 28, 2003: Message edited by: Diamond18 ]

Well, I'm older than 18, but it has been less than 18 years since my introduction. The Hobbit was read to me when I was about three, four, or was it seven - I have very distinct memories of imagining Bilbo in a cave, and not much else sank in - but I had never heard of Lord of the Rings until two years ago.

Welcome, Meela :)

and, of course, happy Birth(Death) Days(Nights) Diamond18 :D

For some reason, I've never heard of the Tolkien Middle Age Club before, but guess what, I fit in perfectly.

I'm 24 (25 on the 31st!) and haven't been reading the books for more then 18 years.
I first read the LOTR at the age of 15, after that The Hobbit and after that The Sil.
First in dutch, and last year, I read all of them in english. And now I tend to read parts of all the books when I feel like it.

Reason being, the club represents the temporal (in a sense of mean age of its members) minority on the BD (or so it seems)

Happy Birthday (alongside with New Year, o'course :)

My own occurred on January 21, so we have been of the same age for 3 weeks (me being 26 this last 9 days, but, mark you, 25 between 1-20). Must be sign of Fate, or something :rolleyes:

Gosh, now I am 18!
That means I can now be a member [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

I read the books for the first time 2 years ago, after I saw FOTR and thought it was the most amazing film I had ever seen (luckily for me the books ended up being even more amazing than the films!). So I am still rather new to the world of Tolkien. But I love everything about it so much.

I have gone on from LOTR to read The Sil, The Hobbit, and The Book of Lost Tales 1, but I still have so much to learn. Even though I have been here at the downs for over a year, I still feel I am very much a novice.

It's going to be February in a few hours over at where I am, and that would mean two years of being dead, being a Tolkien thinking fan, and two laps of LOTR reading!

I still have much more to learn as well, and the Silm to finish too.

Welcome, dear new members :)

I guess ours is the club with most of the perspective and opportunity, since youngsters of the other club will grow up one day to be our members too, and there will be some decade to go before there is a time for us to move on to oldies :)

Surely, we of MAC form a minority here on the Downs. Most of the members are either younger or older then we find ourselves to be. But, I suppose, there are some newly deceased souls meeting our requirements? So this thread is bumped up :)

cheers

*peeks through the window and wishes she hadn't read the hobbit quite so precociously, thus qualifying herself for the old fogies group rather than the bright young things*.... the fogies are friendly on the whole but Old Prof Hedgethistle can be quite cantankerous... :p

ah, we are not bright young things, we are sober grown-up ones. Bright ones can be found in Tolkien Under Age Club :)

All things are relative... I definitely wouldn't make the cut for that one .. I will just have to console myself with being the "baby"/ juvenile delinquent of the pipe and slippers brigade - though I don't smoke and my slippers are of the fluffy panda variety... so until you reach years of discretion Namarie ..... maybe I should start a person of a certain age club... :p

you mean...there are others?
 

I think this is the place for me.

I read The Hobbit and the LotR as a kid, then rediscovered Tolkien in college. However, I have to admit that my interest didn't extend to his other works until it was piqued again by a certain recent movie trilogy....

Before that, I was content with my once-a-year summer rereading of LotR.

It's nice to find others here of about my age--I was feeling rather alone amidst the young 'uns and the sage professorial types.

Welcome, tar-ancalime :) Have a seat by the fire. Backgammon? Pool? Soft drinks?

*nudge*
 

It's a shame to see the best of the "Age" clubs molding at the bottom of the heap while the old people have so much fun on page 1 of the forum! ;)

I'm actually here to celebrate the 14th anniversary of my reading of the Hobbit. As I posted what seems like an age ago on this thread, I first read aloud with my mother when I was 8. I'm now 22 and I still think reading Tolkien aloud is a fabulous way to pass grey winter afternoons. :)

Sophia

I had to introduce myself to LOtR about 7 years ago. I've read it an average of almost 11 times a year since then. I'm 22. I started with the Hobbit when I was 13. So I started reading them rather late compared to some.
My family is of the serious type, the people who are forever stuck in the real world. My mom read LOtR once upon a time, but she didn't really like it. So thus, she didn't introduce it to me, especially since I already lived in a fantasy world.

Welcome, Milady Revenwyn to the board in general and to this particular corner of it too :)

This looks like the right place. :D

To find the origin of my Tolkien obsession, we have to go back about 12 years, where we find a 9 year old eagerly reading a grammar text. What, a grammar text? Yes, for this was no ordinary grammar book, filled with nothing but sentence diagramming exercises and information about the parts of speech. In the last pages, there were excerpts from novels that had been turned into some sort of assignment, mostly of the "correct the removed punctuation in this paragraph" sort, and one was from The Fellowship of the Ring. After reading the passages several times and wondering where Mordor was, why Frodo wanted to go there and why Sam wanted to go with him, I went to ask my mother if we could go to the library to find this set of books called The Lord of the Rings that I had just been reading about. Unfortunately, my mother is a lifelong member of the fantasy is not real literature society, and flatly refused to facilitate my "wasting my time" with such books. That put an end to my reading. Temporarily.

And so the years went by. Every time I went to a bookstore, I would walk past the Tolkien section, look at the books, and wonder if I would ever find out what happened in the rest of the story. Finally, my younger sister was assigned The Hobbit as part of her book club. She hated it, but as soon as she put it down, I grabbed the book and read it cover to cover. The old curiosity was renewed instantly, and when The Hobbit was dropped off at the library return desk, I left with a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, which was shortly followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King. I've never turned back. :cool:

I, oddly enough, graduate to the MAC now, having turned 18 a few months ago. I first read Tolkien when I was 9, so it looks like I've 9 more years to go until I can graduate again.

18 and middle aged! If I die at 36, I'm going to be severly dissapointed. ;)

This is me, I had to re-incarnate, but the story remains the same! ;) I still love it here and in 8 months I turn 33 and I come-of-age in the Shire-reckoning!

Though gradually, the club still grows :)

Welcome, Beren, and welcome back, hobbitlass :D

How wonderful that the day I find this club is under a week after I qualify for it.

I'm only just 18, but that makes me... old, I suppose. You truly feel it if you ever head over to the chat room where fourteen-year-olds bemoan their love-struck fates.

I did not "discover" Tolkien's work so much as I was forced to read it in 7th grade by a teacher that by common consent is just plain nuts. I have very clear memories of her reading aloud "Riddles in the Dark" and screaming at the top of her voice (disrupting other classes, mind you) about how Baggins is a theif and we hates it forever.

Even apart from that though, I loved The Hobbit and finished it ages before my classmates. I was... *counts on fingers* 12 at the time.

It was my brother's fault that I ended up a bigger LotR fan than him. I make a point of not telling him, but I tend to share his interests and so make a point to check up on new things he's doing to see if I might like them as well. He flatly refused to let me read LotR. He wanted to experiment with me and make me wait until after the movies came out (this was a month or so before the Fellowship came out in theatres) to see what kind of fan I would be.

I objected fiercely and "went behind his back" to beg an old, beat up copy of The Fellowship off of his English teacher (who just happened to be my 7th grade reading teacher who introduced me to Tolkien in the first place). She handed one over immediately and ever after, I fell in love. I finished it in a few days, borrowed TTT and RotK and read them fast.

I read The Silm for the first time last summer, and I recently got my hands on an old copy of The Tolkien Reader, which I've started. What kind of a fool throws a Tolkien book (published in the 60s, no less) on a free rack at the local library?

*Fea throws a banana peel to see who will slip on it*

I have been 18 for 7 months, so I guess I qualify. I started reading the hobbit when I was in the spring of my sixth grade year, so I would have been 12 at the time. After that it took me awhile to actually finish reading the Lord of the Rings, I read each book as a book report for my seventh, eighth, and ninth grade years. The first movie came out 3 months later. So once I found out about the movie, which would have been in December. I reread the Fellowship again quickly so I could see how close it was to the book. Immediately afterward, I read the Silmarillion for the first time, and did not understand a word. So I started reading through the Hobbit and LOrd of the Rings again. By the end of my tenth grade year I was reading through the entirety of the Lord of The RIngs and the Appendices in 1 week. I decided to try the Silm out again. This time I knew more about the world it was set in and it wuickly became my favorite of all of Tolkein's major works. I have currently read through HOME 5, The Tolkein Reader, the Unfinished Tales and Sir. Gawain and the Green Knight. and I have read peices of HOME 1-4.

Why did people stop posting here a month before I joined ? No wonder I never found it. . .

How come the ancient folk can keep their thread alive, but the younger ones neglect theirs?

Anyhow, I have been 21 for a month and 3 days now, I first read the LotR around the time the movies came out. By the time I sa FotR I had just started reading TT amd when I watched the TT, I had finnished TT and RotK and had just gotten my hands on The Hobbit.

Now that I've been 18 for several months now, I suppose I've advanced from the Underage Club to this one. I knew there a club for young adults somewhere- I'm glad I finally found it. :)

Anyways, I discovered Tolkien almost five years ago. It feel like I've been a Tolkien fanatic for ages, but when I think about it, five years isn't very long, now is it? :rolleyes:

Why did people stop posting here seven months before I joined ? ;)

I didn't know this place existed. Thanks to ninja, SpM and Rune who dug it out with joint strength.

Me, I'm 27 (for a few weeks left) and read the books only after the movies were out - and I'm absolutely hooked since then.

Naria approaches the club's Common Room window. She uses her sleeve to rub away caked on dirt from the window and peers inside. To her surprise there were three people standing in front of the fireplace talking. Naria wondered if this would be the place that she was searching for....a place to get out of the cold, to put her feet up and enjoy some conversation.

Naria approached the weathered door and slowly opened it. The creaking door made it hard for her to stay unnoticed and all three turned to see her walk through shaking off some rain. "Ummm, Hi everyone! I hope I am in the right place. By the looks of the dust and cobwebs no one has been here for awhile."

Here we go
 

But that is all to be changed. . . let us get some talking started.

I am currently re-reading all my Tolkien books (in Danish), after that I have a few other books that needs my attention. When I am done with them, I think it is time for me to get something new Tolkien material.

I have The Hobbit, LotR and Silmarillion in both Danish and English. I have the UT in Danish and Tales From the Perilouse Relm in English. What should I get next ?

I have LotR and Silmarillion in both English and German and the Hobbit and UT only in German.

Then the Letters and HoMe 1-5 and 10-12.

Each of these has some very interesting parts and some, well, not so interesting parts. It depends on what you are interested in. Out of the History I'd recommend parts 3 and 10-12.

Part 3 (The Lays of Beleriand) has the lovely Lay of Leithian, the story of Beren and Lúthien in verse (the verses in the Silmarillion are from it). The language is just awesome. I think I memorised half of Canto IV (Before Thingol), I read that part so often. The Lay of the Children of Húrin is great, too, I'm sure, but alliterative rhyme is not so to my taste.

10-12 contain the latest version of the Silmarillion. Part 10 (Morgoth's Ring) also contains 'Laws and Customs among the Eldar', the 'Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth' and 'Myths Transformed', all extremely interesting texts. Part 11 (The War of the Jewels) has 'The Wanderings of Húrin', and Part 12 (The Peoples of Middle-Earth) has 'Of Dwarves and Men' and 'The Shibboleth of Fëanor'.


I'm currently thinking about reading some of the secondary literature on Middle-earth. Can anybody recommend something?

You mean there's a club for people like us?

I'm 21, and I think I was 7 or 8 when my dad first read The Hobbit aloud to us. It must have been that age, or thereabouts, because my younger brother and sister sat rapt with me. The volume he read from was illustrated, and I remember my father creating separate voices and idiosyncracies for each and every dwarf, so that everything came alive for me on the page. I read The Hobbit for myself only a few weeks later (I learned to read before attending kindergarten, thanks to my father's stories), and when I was eleven I talked my grandparents into buying me a LotR boxed set that was in the Scholastic Books catalog my teacher sent home with us, and intended for much older students. My public school teachers were appalled. Those poor paperbacks! I read them so many times the bindings split. The Return of the King had been inadvertently re-edited into three volumes last time I saw them.

Homeschooling soon left me plenty of time to read at whatever "grade level" I chose, and I tackled the Silmarillion and a plethora of books of legend and myth, a passion directly aroused by the sense of epic and continuity in Tolkien's works. I usually had two or three books open at any given time (and scattered on flat surfaces throughout the house, to my mother's intense frustration).

Now, though, having married and moved half a country from my parent's house, I own no Tolkien but a cherished copy of The Hobbit, given me by my siblings for my high school graduation. Oh well.

I envy those of you who've read the books in multiple languages. It seems to me something that could give such an interesting perspective on the stories, but I don't speak anything but English well enough even to try.

I remember those catalogs! My mom would always let me pick out 3-5 books of my choice. The day those books arrived at school was like Christmas. :D

I wish I had the opportunity to read the books at a younger age. It remained unknown to me for 13 years that there were actually old copies of the trilogies and two copies of The Hobbit- one per parent (the one my dad owns is an ancient copy, printed shortly after RotK was published- it even has Tolkien's artwork in it)- sitting in the bookshelves at home, collecting dust. Strangely enough, my parents never read their books (well okay, my mom did read The Hobbit, but it was decades ago). Since my parents never got into his books, I suppose that is why I was never introduced to Tolkien at a young age. It wasn't until a few months before the FotR movie was released that I even slightly knew what the trilogy was about. After hearing my friends constantly jabber about their excitement for the movie, I finally decided to see what all the fuss was about and picked up my mom's copy of The Hobbit. Aside from being slightly discolored from old age, those books were in almost perfect condition. Let's just say there was a reason why my mom decided to buy me my own copies of the books.... :rolleyes:

I also recommend The Lost Road, which I think is in HoME V, and from which I've taken my current signature. I haven't finished it yet, being short on time lately. Makes the signature rather appropriate, doesn't it? :rolleyes:

I don't have any of the HoME series, should I not buy them all at once or at least 1-5 ?

It just seems "wrong" for me to buy 5, I assume there is a reason to them being given numbers.

garr what is it with all you americans marrying young, it makes me feel so old.

I wouldn't buy them all at once, they're not that cheap after all.

Here's a nice page that has a synopsis of the parts. I guess it's best to first take what interests you most.

The reason for the numbers is that it's way too much for one book. :p It took Christopher Tolkien 13 years to sort all (well, not all, but much) of his father's writings. They're arranged (roughly) in the order J.R.R. Tolkien wrote them, so Book 1 contains his earliest writings and Book 12 his latest. Unless you want to follow J.R.R. Tolkien in his thought process, I don't think you should mind to read in whatever order you like.

No! For the last time I am NOT 28!.... sorry guys, the guy dressed in gray with a weird stick in his hand was holding me at the door... he kept saying "you... shall not pass!!!! unless you are young enough for the middle age club." But I'm here!

Now, I can't even recall when it was the first time I read LoTR. I actually started by the Hobbit, but I can't recall when I read that either. I must have been around 14-ish when I read the Hobbit and immediately after I read LoTR. The thing I remember the most was finishing The Two Towers almost by midnight on a Saturday and trying to convince my parents to take me in a wild hunt for any open bookstores that might have The Return of the King. THEY WERE TAKING FRODO, AND HE WAS ALIVE!!!!

That was a looong loong night, first thing the following morning I got RoTK.

Since then I have read the Silmarillion, finished (reading) Unfinished Tales, Roverandom and Tales from the Perilous Realm. I also started Lost Tales but didn't quite catch on with it.

But hey! I'm glad to be here... and don't worry Rune, I'm still far from married... Perhaps we should start the "Tolkien Singles (and not looking to get married soon) club"